


like the gardens of babylon

by cottagecorekim



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: (again lol), Drabble, F/F, Future Fic, Mutual Pining, post-disbandment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 05:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30118086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cottagecorekim/pseuds/cottagecorekim
Summary: jennie attends the grammy's without her muse.
Relationships: Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa
Comments: 17
Kudos: 48





	like the gardens of babylon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heyrrra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heyrrra/gifts).



> got inspired by malcolm & marie. please do thank ur muses.

your name gets called, and there's a raucous applause that should enthrall you but it doesn't. there's a camera on your face, you know it. you'll appear to be in a daze, and they'll say it's a flash of disbelief: _the first korean soloist ever to win a grammy, stunned as she makes history_ , but it is an epiphany that has brought itself forth, the dazzle of the spotlight and the shine of the honor that you're about to receive on a weighty gilded gramophone mounted on a black base losing its appeal. you think, _what is it with timing that i can't get right?_ because the flash that went off a second before you won is brighter, eclipsing the moment that should mean everything to you but it doesn't— at least not for now. 

it's anticlimactic, and it's chaeyoung who nudges you, holds your hand in a squeeze so you stand up, saying you won that you almost snap out of it but jisoo pulls you into an embrace that you remember who is missing. then you walk, head down, trying to orient yourself, trying to fake the grace in your stride to the stage so you do not trip on your chanel and over your dignity, the clincher changing to _the first korean soloist ever to win a grammy, stunned as she makes history and follows jennifer lawrence at the trip trend for the memento._

you reach the podium, walking with the trail of spotlight and pride at the stairs to the presenter who you do not recognize under the daze, white hot lights and the whiplash of the night, the scene-stealer and the moment-wrecker, and _what is anything?_ _what is this?_ _where is lisa?_

the applause has not yet ended, and _none of these people adore me like you do, and i miss you._ what comes out of your mouth is "you may stop clapping and sit down please" that earns a polite laugh from the audience who couldn't have found that funny, a thick pretense that you carry off naturally because you are a performer more than anything else that you have been in your life.

you start with an exhale, and recite the script that you never thought you would say tonight: the pleasantries and the gratitude of "i want to thank the recording academy for giving us the chance of consideration, let alone giving us this honor. i want to thank my collaborators who worked hard with me and helped me say what i have been wanting to say with the language that i know best to speak with.

i only ever dreamed to be given a chance to make it to the stage and to be able to create music, make a name, and for years, i had that chance with blackpink. so i would also like to thank the fans, especially you who had supported me even after. i want to thank the family that i made for their support and their belief that never wavered: to chaeyoung and jisoo, both incredible artists. you knew about the songs before they made it to the booth for years, and i love that we all grew together and we made it this far. i love that we began together and even after then, we're still together in this, and i love you forever," you say, catching your breath, and so-suddenly falling at the hole beneath your feet, plunging into the depths of the so-sudden epiphany caught at the glare of the album on the screen: this flare, and how lisa is not breathing in the same auditorium as you. 

you thread your words together, strewn over _i miss you, you should be here with me on the stage because i wrote these songs with you in my head, and i'm sorry for everything in between and things i don't know,_ but you say after a stagger of a breath and a closing of your eyes, not trusting what will come out of your tongue, "and to lisa, you are in every line in the album. you will live forever in these songs. thank you for everything." 

you polish your performance, raising the award and bowing down, making your mark, and thanking the crowd, korean on your tongue. the applause starts again, the sea of people standing up before you and you walk off the stage with a heart that thunders and braced in another longing. the award is weightless in your hands and the flashes of cameras start backstage, welcoming you as if you are another person that spoke on stage at the before and after.

they give you a flute of champagne. it doesn't save you; nobody saves you from the onslaught of imaginary headlines that pose the great questions with big, shiny variations of glamorizing your name in another gaze: someone new and some things new about you, half of your lifetime in the industry tucked away in distant memory where you lived for the best and the worst. 

you smile at the lenses, mindless and empty, feeling more and more of the missing and less and less of the merit.

lisa is miles and miles away, and the night is long. 

-

_the reprise: jennie kim emerges in a new light with a reinstatement of artistry in a new album_

_jennie kim sets eras apart from days of blackpink in a new album after "solo" from 2018_

_jennie kim wows critics in new album: a reinvention of pop and ballad of the age_

_jennie kim walks the line of the new odes of raw in a new album after a three-year hiatus from the spotlight_

_yg under fire after jennie kim releases album: issues on mistreatment and creative freedom reemerge five years after blackpink contract termination_

_the recording academy: jennie kim ushered herself back into music with a new statement on music and narrative, putting herself into the leagues of a-list lyricists of the generation_

_jennie kim stalks up a steep history with a grammy win for album of the year_

_jennie kim steps into the grammy's with chaeyoung park and jisoo kim five years after blackpink disbanding_

_jennie kim thanks ex-bandmates park chaeyoung and jisoo kim, mentions lisa manoban in first grammy win speech_

_lisa manoban stays quiet after jennie kim's mention in grammy win speech: "you will live forever in these songs"_

_fans speculate on feud and romance: jennie kim mentions lisa manoban in grammy win speech, ex-bandmate not in attendance_

_more than ex-bandmates? speculations on jennie kim and lisa manoban resurface after ambiguous grammy win speech_

-

your name is spoken out into the night and a flare ignites brighter, reaching out into the dark in an expanse of distance that has a language of its own for something, but it is you in your suite in los angeles now, dress discarded and shoes strewn on the floor a little too early for a record-breaker and the _new adored and admired,_ and you know what you want.

"jennie, hi," she had said, the lilt in her voice holding your sleep at hostage, postponed. what more of this irony: epiphanies of something setting off like a lucky strike before you're an album of the year awardee, and lisa calling at the nearing drop of a shut eye in days? "chaeng said you skipped the afterparty, and i thought i could call you. is now a bad time?" she asks, and god, you wish lisa finally speaking with you after five months isn't the worst case scenario in this serendipitous of a field day, but it is, not with missing lisa when you had been getting better with being without her.

_i was getting braver in getting used to not seeing you everywhere_ _, but i suddenly missed you today and i regret not inviting you,_ you think. "no, it's okay. i wasn't really doing anything" is what comes out of your mouth, and it's funny how you can withstand any criticism and hate even if they should eat you alive, but realizing that you miss lisa during a supposedly highlight of your career has you shaking at every foundation that you held on a pledge, and one that you made: _staying friends is better, and we know where we stand._

"oh, okay," she says.

"yeah," you reply, not knowing what else to say (except _you would have hated los angeles when i arrived, because it rained. it_ rained, _and it had been dull, and i saw this nan goldin visual diary that i would have bought you but i don't know if you already have it. i haven't been asking about you,_ really).

"i was watching the live broadcast. you looked wonderful. that was chanel, wasn't it? of course it is chanel," she asks, saving the conversation from the awkward air in the easy fashion avenue. and _oh, you were watching? if i were you, i wouldn’t have. but do tell,_ _was i perfect? did i stutter at all? did i look stupid when they called my name? when did we become awkward? i think we used to be better than this._ _have you changed your mind?_

"it was. i was thinking if i could've went with the classic corset belt, but that would've been stealing your thunder," you say, _just to give a homage to you because you weren't there with me, or maybe i just thought of you._ _how do you feel about me not inviting you?_ _jisoo said you didn't mind, and of course,_ you wouldn't, _but chaeng seems to know more, or maybe i'm making everything mean something._

"if _i_ could've styled you, you would've worn one and you would've been the best dressed for a halloween party, playing pirate and not for grammy's," she retorts.

"chaeng wanted the corset belt either way. she insisted on that leather with saint laurent," you say, laughing lightly, and so does lisa on the other line, sounding in harmony with the light chatter in the background.

you would've been among the small crowd in lisa's afternoon. maybe bottles of rosé with the family that you chose to be with because chittip has been your mother even before you knew anything about loving lisa, and marco has always been your father too, bonding over cooking for somebody you both love. you would've ditched the awards show for that more than anything.

it's cruel how it's almost religious that you take the wrong turns from choosing an easier love every time, a detour from the live afternoon in a living room that had seen where you and lisa had been through the years of staying and leaving. it's cruel how you always have chances in turning around and still find her waiting, brave and knowing because the sun had set far too many times whenever you leave, the world ending over and over again until she's learned to be wiser than you are to, perhaps, hope enough to know this is how you love; enough to let you in on the weekends that you choose to build another world, and then stride off again as she does. 

you know it shouldn't be the way that you love, and this is how the crumbling starts: with a shake in your voice that lisa doesn't seem to recognize. "what time is it from where you are right now?" you ask, playing clueless that you almost hear lisa snort on the other line. 

instead she sighs, sounding with a smile because she knows you better (and chaeyoung couldn't have kept her mouth shut about you asking every time, lisa's name spilled into conversations that isn't as smooth as you hoped). "i'm home. i'm back here in thailand," she says anyway, going with whatever pretense of cool that you're on and you don't know if you want to be thankful for that. "mom is in the living room with some friends. they came over and watched with us. they're saying _hi_ and _congratulations_ from the glass doors. they know that i'm talking to you. i'm at the balcony."

_you should've been here,_ you think. so you say "you could've been here" before you can say anything better, save the conversation and do this in another time where it is only fair, walk the line this time just to make it right, but you don't. 

maybe you want lisa to ask, be spiteful or anything at all just to know whether she cares or not about being the muse and being left off from the red carpet, resigning to the distance that you created because maybe you don't know how to keep close— you don't know how to do _this,_ this whatever-the-hell that you agreed to, but maybe what you feel is just for tonight, too.

lisa could be anywhere else than in thailand too, and there wouldn't be anything unclear about tonight, about your speech, about where it all went and _when have i gotten so stupid because nothing holds us by the neck now?_ since when have _staying friends_ meant anything when it comes to lisa? _why have we chosen this now that it's_ _easier? where have we led us?_

or lisa could've been with you in the afterparty, because everything would have meant something and you would have been happy and sure. people will look at lisa and wonder what it would be like to be her, or be with her. people will look at the way your hands never left lisa. people will talk because you're not the same jennie they knew from blackpink, not expecting anything like what you've won for; because _you will live forever in these songs_ is as ambiguous as it is the clearest, most candid that you can ever be then and you could have said more, and you wouldn’t give less of a fuck for journalists who would die for an exclusive, asking questions about your music that they're not really interested in at first as a rite of passage for the story that peeked at your choice of words and you would not have given any of that satisfaction, your eyes only set on lisa. it will make sense at the end of the party when you would have been drunk but sober enough to tell her you'll kiss her because everybody has been looking at her all night long. she would probably laugh, but she will let you pull her anyway, smiling. people will take your photos, and you wouldn't mind. chaeyoung and jisoo wouldn't pull you away from each other this time in fear of getting caught, but they will laugh, pour fuel to the fire and maybe a photo of you and lisa lost in a drunken waltz at somebody's balcony would make it to both their drunken posts— a blur oblivion dancing to the world without a lie and unapologetic.

you would make two headlines in the morning: the grammy win and the confirmation, and you won't care which headline you would be remembered for. there wouldn't be a needed damage control for this, and you will walk out of the hotel from the same room to your flight back to korea, but lisa hums thoughtfully from the other line now. "yeah, i could have been there," she says, and the flare holds, aglow, knowing where your heart is and _what a dread,_ knowing where this leads. "when will you come back to korea?'' lisa asks, steering clear of any talk of that so it stops and you understand why, or maybe not because perhaps, _it_ isn't something to dwell in anymore and you both do not have time for _this_ now.

_you're_ _overthinking,_ and part of you wants to open it all up again, change the ending from where the both of you had left off with not much to talk about, sealed off and almost done, but maybe this will pass too like every other flare that had retracted and died off. you decide on holding onto that, so you answer "later today. in a few hours."

"you should sleep," lisa says softly on the other line. "i just wanted to call and congratulate you. you deserve it. i'm so proud of you. always," she tells you at her earnest, and you know she means it. it makes you reach for something that isn't on the other side of the bed, cold and unbothered. it feels as if it rains in los angeles again, out of place and with no reason to be like this in a dawn. 

you should be dreaming of something else, something forward without caving inward to things you can't change and things you can't take back. take back lisa, all the time spent on people that weren't her to fill the room in your heart that has been dusted, all _this—_ about this love that you can't imagine will pass by again, cloaked off and tucked safely into something that would do you well but it doesn't.

it shuts you down for a moment, because maybe, you had been waiting for that— waiting for anything from lisa, because this is what you promised: _keep close, i'll keep you in my life even if you won't want me to anymore._ there's a part of you that waits for that to be exhausted and extinguished because you know how confusing this is, and how exhausting you are in all these questions of _until when can you make yourself be with me_ and _for how long is it this time._ maybe lisa doesn't care now. maybe you shouldn't too, but you shouldn't feel this anymore either.

a breath escapes you; another shake trembles at your conviction from lisa's voice, and you wonder where else in the history you've resigned to memory would you have found yourself in, seeking refuge in tenderness from nights and nights ago where you didn't think of roads leading here, if she had not called. could anything be worse? would the flare go on if she had slept it away? would it had been severed?

and maybe you will, somewhere in between sleep and the pen and paper at your nightstand, and you will find yourself in places with lisa that had always felt right. maybe you will find new questions to ask, only to be met with the silence of the night that stretches on to the absence and the sleepless morning, and then off to a home that misses a shape that used to fill the spaces. 

_really?_ you want to ask. _will you love me for another weekend if i asked you?_ but you say "thank you," trying to sound earnest, sounding small and fragile against something that should hold you afloat but it doesn't. 

"well, i'll let you go now. they're calling me in," lisa eventually says after a pause. "have a safe flight, jennie. see you when i see you. take care of yourself. say _hi_ to kai and kuma for me, yeah?"

"i will. see you, lisa," you say, maybe a little tongue-tied and paralyzed. she ends the call, and there had been nothing else to listen to but your skittish heart, asking for something more because you can go to thailand, skip the pleasantries when she answers the door and live a little more, and maybe stay for more than a day or two, skip engagements for the next weekday to catch up, see bangkok again and ask lisa how had she been— ask questions she probably doesn't have the answers for.

_see you when i see you,_ she had told you. _don't_ _go yet, please, and tell me more about your afternoon,_ you wanted to say. _tell me things about you that i haven't heard from chaeng and jisoo. i miss your voice_ falls flat on whims, because this is how far as it can go for a night: a crumb that has fed the flare, all wondering, all uncertainties, all glossing over the things you chose not to touch now gleaming so far because maybe it isn't meant for you anymore and this is the last of it— the vestige of heartbreak pain for another song, another line. all this _maybes_ and futile attempts of answering.

so off you are into the early morning, flung into meeting the flare in the middle and crossing the space in between thailand and los angeles with verses and prose spilled over, written a hundred times over with different words in new missing and yearn. 

_see you when i see you. see you when i see you. see you when i see you. see you when i see you. see you when i see you._

_and when?_

-

two days back in korea, lisa sends you a bouquet: a big arrangement of hyacinths, syringas, ranunculus, and tulips, with a handwritten card, neat and small— a fuel to the fire, and you read the card over and over, trying to find something that isn't safe.

_congratulations on the grammy win! how did it feel to be in close proximity with taylor swift?_

_welcome back. i hope los angeles had been colorful for you._

_l._

-

you had been on your way out of the café, the rustic, warm wood and autumnal brick fade left behind for the hectic seoul district, cold and clean for the weekend. you had your tip dropped off on the counter and you know everybody recognized you by the looks the barista and the cashier had been giving you, a little struck even when you already know them by name, being a regular customer for years. you bid your goodbye in a smile before putting a face mask on, out into the streets where a number of the worst can happen to you, walking alone without an escort in places where you could get mobbed by people who want photos with you, your signatures, mobbed by people who hate you so much to know who you are, be in the same air as the people who are obsessed with you.

but of course, you recognize the doe brown eyes, familiar build and the shoulder-length black hair, out-of-place in the stale of seoul; like sun in the middle of a rain, or you in grammy's without your muse. 

you think about how she looks so good— how she would've looked so good on your arm nights ago— how there's a new flaunt in the way she's walking towards you, crossing the space on the sidewalk after days of thinking the flare had been the same as every other else in the past three years, and _what a way to walk back into my life._

" _bonjour,_ " she says, tongue curling perfectly to the french accent that you both learned together for years. it's enough to have you flung into feeling so much that it's pathetic because you can't really keep something as it is to save yourself from these exhausting cycles of coming back and leaving for things that are pathetic too. 

lisa takes your picture, and you wonder about how she could be out barefaced in a place where everybody had been looking for her. you think, _everybody had been looking for you, but tell me everything before you tell anybody a word. how have you been? where have you been? tell me about the people who kept you when i wasn't around— tell me about the portraits you took that weren't mine._

it's pathetic how there's suddenly everything for something that there shouldn't be anything at all— you shouldn't so suddenly miss lisa again, and you do not really know how you got here. you don't know how the beginning of the weekend is at the precipice already when nothing really happened yet. maybe the anticipation: _tell me everything that i tell to people who aren't you, and i'll tell you what they should mean and this time, everything about them is true because it's you._

she laughs a little, and maybe you look stupid but you don't really mind. you hope she's being pathetic about this too, maybe even just for the weekend, and maybe you can convince her that you do not turn away this time. 

it's a cacophony of everything in the auditorium full of personalities and the superficiality, expensive things and aromatic air all mixed up that romance and prestige were all that there had been, yet the gaping absence of lisa in the night found nowhere in los angeles, found nowhere in the past year by the world and _nowhere in the past five months by me_ , had not been covered on the dazzle and glitter, but there is the hole at your feet again, and you do not bother about wanting to keep yourself afloat. 

so it crumbles on this unglamorous sidewalk, no red carpets: this conviction made, thrown out, undone and done again a few times over, and you think _i'll never run away again,_ carelessly. you don't know what that means— if it will change in another hour, but it matters now.

on a saturday, you come home to lisa's penthouse in seoul.

**Author's Note:**

> unedited. trynna see smn lol.  
> say smn!: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/~plath/cottagecorekim


End file.
